Waymo is going on a 10-city road trip across the U.S., including cities like Boston, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Nashville. | Source: Waymo
Waymo recalled 1,212 robotaxis to address risks of collisions with chains, gates, and other roadway barriers. The company said it resolved the underlying software issue through a November 2024 update that reduced the likelihood of these types of events. The recall does not impact its operations or any vehicles currently on the road, the company said.
U.S. auto safety investigators from the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened a probe into the issue last year. Waymo said that between 2022 and late 2024, its vehicles were involved in 16 collisions with chains, gates, and other barriers. None of these resulted in any injuries, according to the NHTSA. The company operates over 1,500 vehicles on the roads in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin, Texas.
“Waymo provides more than 250,000 paid trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments in the U.S. We hold ourselves to a high safety standard, and our record of reducing injuries over tens of millions of fully autonomous miles driven shows our technology is making roads safer. NHTSA plays a vital role in road safety, and we will continue to work collaboratively with the agency as part of our mission to be the world’s most trusted driver,” a Waymo spokesperson told The Robot Report.
In 2024, the self-driving unit of Google-parent Alphabet issued a voluntary software recall for 672 robotaxis after one autonomously drove into a telephone pole in Phoenix, Ariz. After completing the software update, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company filed the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Waymo balances safety with rapid growth
Waymo has emerged as a clear leader in the robotaxi space in the U.S. The company is planning to launch robotaxi services in Miami, Atlanta, Washington D.C., and Tokyo in the coming years. Just this week, it announced plans to send a small fleet of vehicles to explore Boston.
Waymo was named the 2025 Robot of the Year by The Robot Report. Waymo and all the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards winners were honored at the Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston two weeks ago.
Waymo also just partnered with Toyota. The companies are collaborating on a new autonomous vehicle platform to bring autonomous driving capabilities to the next generation of personally-owned vehicles.
As it has rapidly expanded, the company has also put an emphasis on safety and transparency. It makes its performance data available, downloadable, and analyzable for the public.
In December, Waymo shared new research with Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest insurance providers, analyzing liability claims related to collisions from 25.3 million fully autonomous miles driven by the Waymo Driver. The study expands on Waymo’s previous research by using auto liability claims aggregate statistics as a proxy for at-fault collisions.
The study compared Waymo’s liability claims to human driver baselines, which are based on Swiss Re’s data from over 500,000 claims and over 200 billion miles of exposure. It found the Waymo Driver demonstrated better safety performance when compared to human-driven vehicles. It showed an 88% reduction in property damage claims and a 92% reduction in bodily injury claims.
Across 25.3 million miles, the Waymo Driver was involved in just nine property damage claims and two bodily injury claims. Both bodily injury claims are still open and described in the paper. For the same distance, human drivers would be expected to have 78 property damage and 26 bodily injury claims.
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